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If one does wish to buy the physical book reprint by Pharr because of the free pdf version available from this website, then there are two ways to read the book from the pdf version.

The first method is rather inconvenient : print the book on paper and read it from there. This is inconvient because of the required printing of the whole book. The style of the books of that era calls for flipping back and forth throughout the pages, as the lesson paragraphs refer to other paragraphs on morphology, syntax and the like. These paragraphs in turn may refer to other paragraphs, etc. So that one cannot read the book on paper without the whole 391 pages available at all times.

The other method is to read the pdf directly from the computer. This is far from a real book, but can present some advantages. However, the available pdf we get does not present such features that make reading a pdf enjoyable.

So here is what I have done with the pdf. First, I have bookmarked the chapters and many of their respective sections. Most of the lessons were bookmarked as well, so one can go directly to them from the standard bookmark panel.

Then I went a step further. At all places were the text refers to a paragraph number, I inserted a hyperlink bringing directly to the desired location, by clicking on the referred-to number. It is simple now to jump all over the book by clicking on the links, and coming back to the original departure point by using the navigation arrow tools of the pdf file.

I do not know if anyone has gone through the trouble of doing this, but it sure makes a big difference in saved time alone. Reading Pharr on my portable computer is now much much more convenient than any piece of paper.

I agree that making bookmarks helps a lot. Another thing I did that I like was to divide it into 3 different pdf's -- one with the just lessons, one with just the grammar and one with just the vocabulary. That way, I can leave the lesson one open to whatever page I am working on and easily move through the other two as needed (not that I never need to look up vocabulary or grammar...)

edonnelly wrote:Another thing I did that I like was to divide it into 3 different pdf's -- one with the just lessons, one with just the grammar and one with just the vocabulary. That way, I can leave the lesson one open to whatever page I am working on and easily move through the other two as needed

I just printed the whole thing and binded the lessons appart from the grammar/vocab. But having two wide books opened at the same time is still somewhat cumbersome.

Rank Beginner wrote:Hello. I am new to Textkit (today!) and to the Greek language. Is Pharr the place to start if I am interested in learning Greek in order to read the Classics.

The short answer is yes, but you should read this excellent discussion written by Will Annis, one of our moderators, which goes into detail about your options and how to decide which is the best for you:

Well, thanks to Will, all I did was point to the article, he wrote it. I think Pharr is a great text. It's a little intimidating at first, but once you get through the first 10 or so lessons you can really progress quickly.

I printed the whole thing out and on my couch I have 2 stacks of Pharr:

Stack 1 is the first half of the book which is the intro and the lessons. Whatever lesson I am on is on top.

Stack 2 is the grammar and index. Whatever page that corresponds to the lesson I am on is on top of that stack.

So, while I work through stack 1, I am constantly moving back and forth through stack 2 for reference. As I work through the lessons, I copy all the notes from stack 2 into my notebook in the order that I use them for the lessons as well as all the translation exercises and vocabularies from stack 1. What I will end up with in that notebook is basically my own personal copy of Pharr, written out in my own hand, with the grammar notes inserted into the lessons instead of at the end of the book. I also copy all the correct answers to the exercises from greekgeek.com so I will have a complete answer key as well as my own attempts.